By donating the profits from her home-furnishings line to animal causes, the decorator offers a unique model of giving

Designer Erika Brunson donates profits from her Couture Living furniture line to charity. Photo: Grey Crawford

When interior designer Erika Brunson moved to Los Angeles after growing up in war-torn Germany, she was immediately inspired by the sun, sea, and laid-back lifestyle. “It was heaven,” she says. “So much vibrancy and light after living in such a gray place.” Her remarkable career began in 1980, when she redecorated the Beverly Hills estate of her husband’s business associate, who happened to be a nephew of the king of Saudi Arabia. The next thing Brunson knew, she was designing the royal family’s palace in Riyadh. Several large-scale commissions followed, and she has been working steadily ever since.

The passionate designer’s other love is animals, and she has found a unique way to promote both her aesthetic and pet welfare through her furniture line, Erika Brunson Couture Living. Featuring exquisitely replicated period pieces, the brand is eco-friendly—very little machinery is used, and all wood comes from renewable sources. But what’s more impressive is that Brunson donates the entirety of her personal profits from the collection to animal interest groups.

Brunson regularly gives to PETA and the Humane Society (for large sales, she allows the client to designate a charity), but the greatest share of her donations goes to Spay-4-LA, a program she launched in 2001 to help alleviate the city’s pet-overpopulation crisis. “Tens of thousands of cats and dogs are euthanized here every year,” she says. “I was moved to do something about it.” Brunson came up with a characteristically direct solution: A mobile spay-and-neuter clinic that drives around low-income neighborhoods and provides sterilization services for free. The idea proved so successful that in 2010 she added a second Spay-4-LA vehicle, and the two clinics now perform roughly 12,000 procedures annually.

The designer plans to expand the service to other countries, starting with India this year. Says Brunson, with her trademark exuberant laugh, “These vans are only a start.” erikabrunson.com and spay4la.org

A mobile clinic for Spay-4-LA, a program she launched in 2001. Photo: Joe Schmelzer